In the operation of motor vehicles it has been usual heretofore to provide one pedal for actuating the vehicle brake and a second pedal for controlling the operation of the carburetor thereby performing as an accelerator pedal. However, in an emergency there is necessarily some delay due to the reaction time of the driver and the time required in shifting his foot from one pedal to the other. Also there is a substantial possibility of additional time required for the driver to coordinate the movement of both feet to actuate the brake and release the accelerator pedal simultaneously.
In order to limit the time delay between when a driver perceives an emergency and when the vehicle braking arrangement is initiated, it is advantageous to provide a combination braking and accelerating pedal. Various attempts have been suggested to overcome the problems of linkage arrangements which are inherent with a single pedal system. These systems are exemplified by the following U.S. Pat. Nos.:
______________________________________ Pat. No. Patentee ______________________________________ 2,483,224 A. J. Narcovich 2,124,970 R. Walker 3,386,541 H. N. Luijt 3,536,229 Yedidya Boros 3,630,326 Kawaguchi ______________________________________
One of the main problems with the prior art has been the extremely complicated linkage arrangements which have been required to utilize one pedal for both the braking and accelerating. The numberous linkage elements and points of junction make these systems very inefficient with excessive tolerances and problems of frequent breakage. The complication of the linkage was primarily due to the fact that these systems utilized a pivotal arrangement about a fulcrum. Usually the system employed was to utilize pressure at the top of the pedal to actuate one action and pressure at the heel of the pedal to actuate the other action. The problems associated with the prior art are overcome in applicant's invention utilizing the single pedal system as disclosed below.